Play as long as you can, no matter the level
The first part of my life in amateur football, with plenty more left to come.
Last summer I had a to make a tough decision to leave Helsby Football Club.
Founded in 1895 and based on the outskirts of Chester, Helsby are members of the West Cheshire Amateur Football League which consists of three divisions on rungs 11-13 of the English football ladder.
I can remember on the odd occasion going to watch its most successful side - who’s manager Frank Cannon and his players would go on to have a significant influence on me - win back to back titles to go up to West Cheshire One, the prestigious Cheshire Amateur Cup and the Northern Counties Senior Cup between 1998 to 2001.
Back then, I can also remember a figure running up and down the line at the old ground with a flag (there are no linesmen until Division One) screaming at the players. He wasn’t the manager but he cared so much and he is still there today doing the same thing.
And when my mind was made up last summer, it wasn’t just Club Secretary Paul Nicholls who I would be leaving behind in the search of more playing time. It was the current manager, Johno Harrison, a fellow amateur football fanatic and former teammate from Beechwood JFC under-6’s, right at the start of our football journey. It was Captain and school friend Jon Egerton and amongst others, and it was the exciting group of tenacious youngsters who had played a major part in getting the club back to West Cheshire One for the first time in 12 seasons, playing the game the right way.
For the club, the promotion meant a lot. West Cheshire One would not only mean the luxury of three officials each week but the chance to play at historic grounds across Chester, the Wirral and Liverpool whilst also hosting the best local opposition week-in week-out for the first time since the clubs new state of the art facility opened in 2021.
For me though, it was bittersweet. Ending the season aged 33 - and with injuries not helping - I had only started two games in the entire campaign.
I savoured every minute I could coming on as a substitute, and seeing the lads get over the line after a challenging season was rewarding, but it can take its toll when you’re chasing your Saturday afternoons with a young family at home. For the sake of both my physical and mental health, I felt I needed to be playing regularly .
Remarkably, this would be the end of my fifth spell at Helsby, with the first coming in 2008-09 as a then 19-year-old.
Back then at the old ground, a decade on from standing the other side of the railings, I was amongst the team talks and the relentless pursuit of three points. The changing rooms at the back of the social club, a boggy marsh pitch and a dugout, where I spent many a Saturday afternoon in an all-in-one sub suit, that was build out of breeze block, timber and a corrugated roof sheet.
That Helsby side was strong though and it was no easy place to come. Players seemed to be bigger in presence then - maybe a generation thing - and the game more physical.
There were many parallels with both seasons. As a start we also won both the West Cheshire Two title and the Runcorn & District Cup (as well as the West Cheshire Bowl).
Appearances were mainly used as a substitute with quality players ahead of me and like in 2023, I didn’t make it off the bench in the final.
I had managed six goals in a green shirt that season. This time I had only managed one, from the penalty spot. With club record goalscorer Lee Turkington and once West Cheshire One top scorer Lee Guirado in competition for the jersey, that wasn’t anywhere near enough.
In 2009 the manager was Garry ‘Moey’ Moore, a passionate man with a ruthless streak. If you weren’t up to it, you didn’t play and he was always on the lookout for players who could improve the side.
Garry would pick me and the prolific Conor Taylor up in his minibus after nights in playing Football Manager. We were surrounded by the best amateur players in the town. It was the same minibus Garry took us to a 5-a-side tournament which we won in Burnley once.
Conor, a year senior to me, moved away and retired from competitive football aged 23. He is alongside Lee Turkington and Greg Moorse - who I would meet later down the line - the best natural finisher I have seen.
Where he was playing on the shoulder, you also had Gary Lunt - a strong and intelligent forward from a family of footballers - who could score a goal out of nothing. When I look back there was no shame in being their back-up, but it would have benefitted me more to drop down a few levels to play.
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In the U.K, amateur 11-a-side football is predominantly played on both Saturdays and Sundays, with many players playing both. Saturdays generally kick-off at 2 or 3pm depending on the time of year, whilst Sunday League matches kick off from 10am.
And it has always been the amateur game that I’ve gravitated to, since growing up under the skin of the ICI Runcorn Sunday League in the mid 1990s. Watching my dad play for The Barge and my uncle for The Old Transporter and then going back to the pubs became my Sunday service.
Runcorn sits on the Southern Bank of the River Mersey. founded in 915 AD as a fortification to guard against a Viking invasion. Despite its close proximity to Merseyside, the town’s constituency in Cheshire.
In 1968, a local Sunday League was founded to give amateur footballers in the town the outlet of representing their work teams.
Soon after in the 1970s, new estates and areas of the town were developed with pubs, community and shopping centres around an innovative seven mile transport system, with a ‘busway’ being introduced for the first time in Europe.
Runcorn became an overspill town for families living in Liverpool, and both my mum and dad had made the move.
As the population grew in the town, soon there were around four or five divisions in the Sunday League. In the 1990s, playing fields across the town smothered with adult football and there was a real sense of community and energy around the scene.
Today, the league has disbanded, and you can count on one hand the affiliated Sunday League teams who must ply their trade in the neighbouring Warrington and Liverpool.
One of my earliest football memories is being tossed up in the air by spectators in support of my dad’s team with a sense of oblivion, after I had unknowingly stopped the ball from going out for a throw in a semi-final, instead allowing my dad to run onto the ball, sending a cross into the box which was headed home and given as a goal with the referee the only person in the vicinity of the pitch on Haddocks Wood, a vast playing fields venue, not to see what had happened.
Weeks later, The Barge would go on to beat the Old Transporter in the final 3-1 after a replay in the 1997 District Cup Final. Although I couldn’t make the game due to it being a school night, my dad scored and collected what would be his only winners’ medal.
And as his playing days began to wind down, mine were just beginning.
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During these years, I was starting to attend sessions myself for Beechwood JFC under the stewardship of Gary Siner, a giant of a man who always wore shorts and adidas Samba, no matter the weather. He was relentless for wanting to improve players and ensured each kid had an initialed blue drill top with a red collar with the club name printed on the back.
You were straight in the deep end, and I can remember wearing baggy kits, getting beat 10-0 by teams four years older having to play in 11-a-side goals despite being so young. Johnno - the current Helsby manager who I mentioned earlier - could already hit the goal from the halfway line and was playing a few years up.
In 1997 I was invited to join Halton Borough, a newly set-up team for local boys of my age group.
The level of coaching from Keith Cliffe (below, top left), who ran soccer schools and was also involved with Everton Ladies, was second to none. We were entered into the newly formed Warrington Junior League.
He was serious about it and would give us homework on different turns to practise as well as drills using a tennis ball. Looking back, you could see he had a vision and wanted to create an innovative learning environment. The green and white kits, training tops and the red Coca-Cola nets we used to play in felt different to anything else at the time.
Those days playing 7-a-side, on both Saturdays and Sundays, scoring for fun and then winning all that was in front of us felt like total football.
There was the odd heartbreak as well, losing cup finals like the one at Canal Street when West Bank turned up in shirts and ties as huge underdogs and rolled us over 4-0.
The aura around this period, and the connection we had as a community of coaches, players and parents, is something that still lives strong in me today and outlines why junior team sport is an important grounding socially.
This is also the time where the culture around the game gets you. Summer tournaments, people spraying their hair at what felt like festivals of football. The trips to JJB, the smell of leather on Puma King and Umbro Speciali, and then came the adidas Predator Touch.
Cliffe wanted the team to be the start of the junior section for non-league Runcorn FC (now Runcorn Linnets) but that never materialised. As we dropped the Halton Borough name, we became Runcorn Boys Club and played on the grounds of Runcorn ABC on Boston Avenue.
Alex Macdonald, who has gone on to make over 400 professional appearances in the Football League for clubs such as Burnley, Oxford and currently Stevenage, also trained in the boxing club and was part of our team.
As we geared up for 11-a-side however, I don’t think my dad felt I was going to get a look in, and I was taken out of the set-up.
My next team was Frodsham JFC, who I joined after my family had relocated 15 minutes up the road from Runcorn. When I look back at this period now, it is not with great pride. I do remember the positives of having a go at playing different positions and scoring the odd goal but it was mainly a lot of sulking summed up by an early sending off in a final day relegation decider in Macclesfield, my final appearance in red and black stripes.
It was here I met Danny Warren , who’s important story we told through Copa 90 in 2021. Dan’s brother Mike -who would go on to become an amateur referee - played for Frodsham and his parents Tracey and Steve were salt of the earth people who welcomed me in.
After a season of not playing, in 2005, I joined Brookvale United Under-15s after being encouraged by my mates. I was back in Runcorn and back playing upfront. I absolutely loved it. We had a basic claret and blue PRO✩STAR kit, my dad was there watching every week. We were a good, battling side.
With the lures of girls and alcohol coming into play at that age, for away games we would often scrape an eleven together last-minute before leaving in a convoy from The Dray pub car-park to compete with teams across Widnes, Warrington and Rainhill.
Once we even came back from 2-0 down away in Eccleston - with nine men for the duration of the game - to win 3-2 in possibly the maddest game I’ve been involved in.
We had a great goalie Anthony Conroy, who is now a leading darts player in the local leagues, and Mike Braniff, a small in stature centre back who could read the game very well. Mike’s dad, Alan, and his brother Craig known as ‘Dentist’ were great at getting the best out of us.
Over the course of two seasons, we came close to the winning the league and managed to win a District Cup, beating Runcorn Boys Club under-14s 3-0 in the final.
At this point, a decade playing junior football had passed and as a 16-year-old boy, next it was time to experience the amateur men’s game.
When I look at the team photos from my junior teams, my only regret is that some of the lads are no longer playing. Life does get in the way, but I do feel more can be done to keep players playing and that is one of the key themes to explore through the August to May project.
That's brilliant Al. My lad playing out of the Boys Club for Heath Rangers u16s. I keep telling him, don't ever stop playing you'll regret it one day when you do